Yep. It's the Ibogaine.

It's quiet out there.  TOO quiet.

For all that we keep spinning out our various preferences and theories—Yes, I'd like three Babe Ruths and two Ted Williamses, please.  Johnny Bench?  Well, only if he's going to hustle.  How many Koufaxes can we get?—the team of our heart is doing...absolutely nothing.

I mean, zero.  Nada.  Not one damned thing.

There are those of us who want Bryce, and those of us who want Manny, and those of us who want Bryce and Manny.  But you don't have to call us Johnson.  (Sorry, brief Burns & Schreiber flashback. from the seventies)

There are also some, such as our Peerless Leader, who would like us to aim more precisely and spend the doubloons we've forfeited to the Steinbrenner family on some strategically valuable, underrated role players.  Or stick with the kids.  Or something.

But if you'll notice, the Yankees are doing, well, nothing.  No big stars.  No little dippers.  No Bryce or Manny, at least so far—with Manny promising not to decide until next year.  Oh, joy.

While we fans busy ourselves doodling theoretical lineups we'd like to see, the Dodgers are engaged in an intricate set of maneuvers that will probably allow them to ink Harper.  And everyday, in every way, more and more of those vaunted role players sign with one team or another.

Those of us anticipating one of Cashman's trademark, last-minute deals or signings, swooping in after maintaining radio silence as steadfastly as Nagumo's fleet approaching Pearl Harbor, or engaging actively in  Houdini-level misdirection for weeks...had better think again.

I have it on good authority that the scotch and calzones of the Yankees' brass has been thoroughly dosed with Ibogaine.

Remember Ibogaine?  It was the drug that Hunter Thompson claimed in Rolling Stone that Ed Muskie had been given during his somnolent, 1972 primary campaign.

What is Ibogaine?

Thompson, quoting some actual chemical manual, claimed it was a highly effective hallucinogenic,  from "a little known root named Tabernanthe Iboga," long used by aboriginal tribes in Africa, Asia, and South America for hunting and mystic religious ceremonies.

"At a dose of 300 mg," Thompson wrote, "...Ibogaine produces a state of drowsiness in which the subject does not wish to move, open his eyes, or be aware of his environment."

Properly imbibed, Ibogaine reportedly enabled hunters to lie absolutely still for days on end while staking out skittish game.

Yep, sounds like the Yankees front office to me.

What else—save for a remarkable plague of petite mal episodes, or maybe that mind-altering mystery machine down in Cuba, also possibilities—could account for Coops and co. doing nothing at all, even in a small way?  Hell, even in a STUPID way by now?

No, they've all been drugged.  Probably by those masterminds up in Boston, the bastards.  Put it in the calzones, or employed Steve Pearce, still engaged in his endless rampage of revenge against us, to use his old credentials and sneak into Yankee Stadium with an ample supply of the drug, sixteen tiny needles, and a blow gun.

Right now, Hal, Coops, Lenny, and Lonn are having the trip of their lives, following the Coyote over a psychedelic landscape we can only imagine, while one free agent after another slips away.

Ibogaine.  You heard it here first.

Either that, or it's all the rat feces in the food.